Little White Schoolhouse, birthplace of the Republican Party
on March 20, 1854 in Ripon, WI. The structure was built in its original location in 1853 as a school building for the young
town of Ripon.   
   

In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party met to
establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the
western territories. The Whig Party, which was formed in 1834
to oppose the “tyranny” of President Andrew Jackson, had
shown itself incapable of coping with the national crisis over
slavery.

With the successful introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
of 1854,  that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise
and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the territories
by popular sovereignty, the Whigs disintegrated. By February
1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper
midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party, one 
such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally
remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party
(above).